When Faith Lost Her Name
by MysteriousAnonymous
Summary: Faith is a tithe. She has prepared for this moment every second of her fifteen years. She thought she was ready. But as she is sliced slowly to pieces, she realizes just how unready she is. Rated for mild imagery.


**I recently read Unwind, by Neal Shusterman. If you're reading this, you've probably read it. But if not, hey, READ IT NOW OR I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN. -_- Not even joking.**

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_When Faith Lost Her Name:_

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**BEFORE:**

I know who I am. What I am. What I am meant to do. I've known that I was conceived to be tithed. I've known forever. I've known God and I've known family. I've known everything. And yet I know nothing.

Why is it that after years of preparation and months of concentrated prayers and after my baptism, reconciliation, and first communion, I will never be close enough to God? It's because I was supposed to be confirmed at age sixteen. I won't be there, whole and unbroken, to conclude my initiation into the Church.

I know He has told me that all children should come to him innocent and pure. I know that being unwound is a great honor. I know that being a tithe is wonderful. Fantastic, even.

Then why do I feel like I am about to implode?

I glance at the clock and set my mind straight at the same time that I smooth out my white gown. It feels as if I'm an angel about to enter the gates of heaven.

The outfit for girls' transition into the divided state is always the same. Shimmery, lacy, floor-length gowns, soft and perfect, white pearls strung around their necks, gauzy veils shadowing their eyes. Eyes that would soon be someone else's.

We proceed down the red carpet as if we were brides.

I had set my appointment weeks ago.

I thought I was ready.

I thought wrong.

"One more hour, please," I say to the guard, ashamed by the gentle tremor that creeps, unbidden, into my words. "I'll be ready in an hour."

He shakes his head. "No, Faith. We have another unwinding scheduled later this afternoon. It must be done now."

My heart- soon it will no longer be my heart- flutters in my chest like a baby bird. "Please," I say. "Please." My voice- it will belong to another, someone I don't know- shakes, fades, trembles, like a tiny faun, just born. "Please."

"Faith. No."

I stand slowly, blinking away tears that should not have risen. It is my sole duty, my only purpose in life, to touch hundreds of people, to donate myself to the saving of others. Why, why, why now am I scared that it isn't what God wanted of me?

I follow him, shaking. The others, the other tithes, they smile at me, wave, clasp their hands together in prayer. My chest- Lord, it won't be my chest soon- clenches tightly, and I feel as though I will be sick. "May I stop for a moment to say goodbye?" My adolescent vocal chords crack on the last word. "May I?"

The guard shakes his head. "We've wasted enough time as it is."

I nod. I can feel my fingernails carving half-moons into the skin of my palms. I wonder if the people who get my hands will realize how adept at origami and painting these hands are. I wonder if they'll care that the hair they have implanted on their heads was my pride and joy. I wonder if the people who will take my brain will know me, know my deepest thoughts and feelings and memories. I wonder if the person receiving my arms will wonder about the scar I have along my elbows, the thin scrape, no longer quite visible, but there, I received from a bad run-in involving a tree and a bike. I wonder if the person who does, quite literally, take my virginity, will wonder which little girl had grown up with that as a part of her.

I wonder so many things on my way up that red flagstone path that I don't notice until I'm ascending the stairs that a band is playing music. It's beautiful, really, and I glance up and smile pitifully at them. They don't bother to even look my way as I enter.

The door closes behind me. I close my eyes as the music cuts off. Soundproof. Protection from the outside world. Keeping a place pure.

Or perhaps it's to cover the screams of terror.

**DURING:**

I step into the room where I will be unwound, now in a plain, paper robe. White, of course.

As I settle myself onto the harsh metal table, a nurse comes in, a smile in her face that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Welcome, Faith. Are you ready to be unwound?"

"No," I whisper, trembling like a leaf in the wind.

"What was that, dear?" asks the nurse, checking her clipboard.

I clear my throat. "Yes. I am."

"Very good."

She calls in surgeons, who roll in little tables covered in knives and scalpels and tubes and syringes and bags that I know are meant for my blood.

My breathing gets heavier as one doctor injects me with something on both sides of my neck. The sting reminds me of a yellow jacket's. I wince, visibly. "What- what was that?"

"Oh, nothing, dear, it'll prevent you from feeling any pain during the process." Her words are mechanical, clipped. She's said all of this a million times before.

I nod and wait for my eyes to slide close and for me to slip into God's hands, blissful oblivion my only companion. My limbs are beginning to tingle.

Yet they don't close. "Why aren't I falling asleep?" I demand. I see doctors whipping out their thin medical instruments, testing the sharpness of the blades. Did it not work? Were they going to slice me apart without letting me drift into unconsciousness, letting me feel every blade in my skin?

The nurse's smile doesn't move an inch. "You aren't supposed to fall asleep, sweetheart. You get to learn exactly what's happening, although you won't be able to feel a thing. You have a legal right to know what they're doing to your body. Isn't it exciting?"

No. It isn't. They're forcing children to be witness to their own demise. I avoid the question and counter with my own. "Will there be lots of blood?" It comes out in a whimper.

"Oh, no. You see, Faith, they're draining it right now. It's being replaced, of course, top of the line stuff. Nutrient and oxygen rich fluids. It'll keep you alive until the very end."

I nod. "What am I supposed to do for three hours?" I ask, pretending I can't feel an odd tugging sensation in my ankles, pretending I don't see the bags of blood now up on the wall, on the same rack as the others labeled A positive.

"Well, speak to me, of course," she responds perkily, although her tone has remained indifferent. "Tell me about yourself."

I refuse to begin with the line I know she's expecting. The line that runs a bit like 'I hate you. I hate my parents. I hate the doctors.'

Instead, I start by telling her of things I love. I tell her of my favorite foods, my pets, my siblings. But somehow I am drawn to speaking about him. Caleb. After all, if these are going to be my last words when my mouth and brain are attached to each other, I'd want to remember the best things.

"And there's a boy I've known forever, even though tithes aren't supposed to get connected and build relationships because it only ends in a messy unwinding. His name is Caleb." I want to start crying. "I- he's my best friend. My twin brother of sorts. He told me he loved me. And I- well, I told him I loved him back. And I do. With everything that I am. " I sniffle slightly and close my eyes. "He didn't know I'm a tithe. He didn't know because I never wore my whites around him and at school. It was a sin, and I'm sorry. So sorry. "

"Mm hmm," the nurse says. But this time her voice isn't just flat. It's got something tinged it it. Not quite emotions, but pretty darn close.

I can't feel anything, but I can see the doctors wheeling away my legs on a section of the table that they're removing. I know bile is supposed to rise in my throat. It doesn't. I feel completely numb. At one with God from my confession, perhaps? But no, it's just that I've seen too many others of my parts, the threads that complete the fabric of me, unwound from my body and sent to be twined into another. It doesn't seem to matter now.

"I wasn't storked." I start in on the bad stuff now. A 'spiritual cleansing ritual,' just as the priest had advised me. "My parents wanted a tithe. They wanted to go to heaven by sacrificing something." The venom and bitterness in my own voice surprises me. "They sacrificed me. And so here I am, their sacrifice to go to heaven. Such a funny thing, they send someone to die in order to redeem themselves. But it's in the Bible. Abraham was going to sacrifice his own son. But God saved him, didn't he? Why isn't the Lord saving me too?"

The nurse nods. "You'll have to stop talking in a few minutes, sweetheart." Her voice has returned to her usual numb state. "You may experience I slight stinging pain in your chest."

"I grew up worshipped like an angel that had come down to Earth. My tithing party was huge. Everyone came. Except Caleb. I didn't want him to see me like this. About to die, I mean," I say. "And now I realize how much I loathe my parents, how much I hate the priest. How much I hate doctors and nurses."

"Perfectly natural. Keep still, they're removing your heart. Now shush, you won't be able to speak in a matter of moments."

I watch my neck get placed on the same section of the metal rolling table as the rest of my spine and my arms. My lungs and heart are placed on another. I shudder. The heart is still beating. It means, no matter how twisted it may seem, I'm technically still alive. My lungs, I still consider them mine, although they aren't attached to me anymore, are still breathing raggedly, and all three organs look as though they've been dipped in translucent, fluorescent green antifreeze.

I am now a disembodied human head, still alive, still conscious. I know that soon I'll be ripped into neat little puzzle pieces. I want to scream, but I can't. My vocal chords were wheeled away with my neck.

Somehow I'm sure that God didn't have this in mind for tithes and unwinds. Somehow I realize how terrible it is for them to leave victims alive as they removed body parts and chatted conversationally with the person they were slicing to threads.

"A miracle of human technology," the nurse says admiringly, watching as more dismembered pieces of who I am slip through the door. "Now, we're in the final stages, Faith! How exciting!" Her voice is perky and unreal, as if she's back in high school biology class and is poking the remains of a dead frog. "Blink twice if you hear me."

I blink obediently, and see out of the corner of my eyes, a thin metal instrument working around my jaw.

"You may feel a slight tingling sensation in your jaw. It's perfectly natural, Faith, honey. You're doing great! You're so brave, darling."

The next thing I see is my jawbone passing over my head and landing on a tray with a clatter of bone on metal. I want to wince, but I haven't got the mouth for it anymore.

"I'm afraid you'll have to stop blinking now. Relax and it'll seem less real. They're removing your eyes now, Faith, and such a pretty green they are, too." I can practically see her beaming, whispering for dibs on my parts.

They don't even speak to me anymore, not after they take my sight, and I can hear them talking meaninglessly about the next unwinding ceremony, the next kid they want on the chopping block, the copious amount of A positive they have, the occasional mention of sports.

Soon I can only hear the doctors on my left side. Then I can't hear at all.

But I think, therefore I am.

I can feel an odd breeze on the inside of my skull. A weight is being removed from it.

My bike accident flashes in my mind, the way my storked older brother, Jason, helped me up and dusted off my whites, smiling. Peter was standing behind him with his arms crossed, clucking his tongue. "When will you learn, silly Unwind?"

"Unwinds are dirty. I'm not one of them, Peter. I'm a tithe. I'm-"

"Special," Jason cuts in. "I know you are. Now let's get that super special A positive cleaned up, alright?"

A hand on my elbow. The scarred elbow that isn't attached to me anymore.

I think...therefore I...therefore I what?

Another section of my head feels lighter.

My eighth grade graduation ceremony. My diploma, the parchment so crisp, to be framed right next to the Unwind papers and my grad picture.

My parents are smiling as they show me the papers in a neat row on the mantle, the nicest frame on the one I knew all about since day one.

I think...therefore...I exist?

My skull feels unnaturally empty.

Caleb. The way he'd smile at me and nuzzle his head in the crook of my neck, mussing his already unruly curls.

I...I think...

My head feels light as air.

Bits and pieces.

Jacob hugging me and crying at my tithing party...

Mom and Dad kissing me goodbye as I board the bus...

My cat, unaware I'm not coming back home as she purrs gently, licking my hand...

Peter dancing with me after nobody else would on the night of my homecoming...

Caleb kissing me full on the lips for an eternity that feels altogether too short, confusion rippling through my mind...

I...I have faith in the Lord...

Faith...isn't that my name?

No...

No...

I...think...

I...

...

**AFTER:**


End file.
